3G Capital’s Lemann Buys Ice Cream After Beer and Ketchup Binge

SAO PAULO–Brazilian billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann’s predilection for the food business continues, with a quiet deal to snap up a stake of around 20% in Brazilian ice-cream maker Diletto.

Bloomberg News

Lemann, center, shown in October 2009

According to a person familiar with the talks, Mr. Lemann spent around 100 million Brazilian reais ($50.5 million) on the purchase. Mr. Lemann, Brazil’s richest man, paired up with investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway earlier this year to buy ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co. for $23 billion.

“The value of the [Diletto] deal and share in the company will change according to its performance in the coming years,” the person said. The deal was concluded in January and was handled through Innova, a fund controlled by Mr. Lemann, according to the person.

Diletto declined to comment for this article. Mr. Lemann couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

Diletto was established in the village of Sappada in northeastern Italy in 1922, but it melted away in the 1930s, as founder Vittorio Scabino fled the approaching Second World War and moved to Brazil.

Eighty years and one continent later, Vittorio’s grandson, Leandro Scabin, revived the brand and the recipes. It relaunched in 2009 and is expected to generate BRL50 million in revenue in 2013, the person said.

The company, based in Sao Paulo, has 3,000 sale points in Brazil and aims to expand overseas, the person said. It puts a big emphasis on the quality of its raw materials, shipping pistachios from Sicily, raspberries from Argentina and cacau from Venezuela.